October was packed full of good times. I don’t think this is all of them, but it’s all of them I can dig up goods for—or, that I can remember to dig up pics and links for.
Started out giving a zombie lecture to an auditorium of people at CU:
Then I was at the Lighthouse in Denver for Atlas Obscura’s way-cool, properly spooked-up event:
Then it was GoH’ing at MileHiCon, where I got to give a little mini-talk on slashers:
all these MHC pics: Rose Beetem
At which point I blasted off for Alabama, which had even more slashers:
Also in Alabama, I got to read to a—first for me—candlelit outdoor amphitheater of people, followed by lots of book signing and picture taking. Great, great time:
Oh, and how could I forget: somewhere in there I flew down to Texas for the Permian Basin Writers’ Festival. Which is to say, I went home to Midland, gave a couple talks, saw a couple people I hadn’t seen in forever, and then took a very rare photograph for me—some Whataburger trash in the bear grass. Which is something I never get to see up here in Colorado:
And, talking stuff all in the wrong order, there’s this “Bringing the Weird and Dead to Life” panel I did with Carrie Vaughn and Molly Tanzer and Marcio Acevedo at Front Range Community College:
Too, CNN came calling, wanting to put me on the small screen talking about Halloween, but, really, man, I just don’t know that much about it, and had to tell them. Though, had I read this thread beforehand, I probably could have faked it:
And, midst and among all this craziness, I was on the television and radio news pretty much constantly, but still did a couple of normal (phone, pod) interviews as well:
- “Why Do People Like to Be Scared?” (video—check that killer background they rigged up in the studio)
- “Zombie 101” (radio discussion, good time)
- “How to Survive Creepy Killers” (webmag)
- “Horror with Stephen Graham Jones” (radio—so nice working with professionals)
- “Halloween Special” (podcast interview)
- “Why Do People Like to Be Scared?” (video—check that killer background they rigged up in the studio)
And, was honored to have made some of the many Halloween-type lists circulating in the land of October:
- “100 Best Horror Books of All Time“
- B&N’s “5 New Horror Books for Dark October Nights“
- LitReactor‘s “13 Halloween Themed Anthologies“
- B&N’s “13 Essential #OwnVoices“
- Vulture‘s “Best Horror Books for Wimps“
And, had stories come out in some way cool anthologies:
And maybe even most important: I finished another novel. That makes three I’ve written this year (two slashers, one haunted house). Now maybe I’ll see if I can jam down a novella or a comic book or a screenplay these last couple months. However, an early copy of the third book in Arden’s Bear and the Nightingale series (there a better name for them?) just found its way to me, and I know that’s getting top, top priority.
Anyway, anybody needs me, I’ll be the one still cleaning all this make-up off his face
As for where I am next . . . I think it’s Tattered Cover (Colfax, surely) in Denver, December 5th, 7pm, then BookBar (Denver, still) December 8th, 7pm again. And, on Thanksgiving day, my story “Moonboys” goes live and free (with audio!) on Lightspeed.
Anyway, until next Halloween, keep that pot stirring:
is the NYT bestselling author of 35 or so books, +350 stories, some comic books, and all this stuff here. He lives in Boulder, Colorado, and has a few broken-down old trucks, one PhD, and way too many boots. More